Five Green Beauty Products I’m Loving Right Now

Let’s talk about clean makeup! Today I wanted to share four new-to-me beauty products I’ve been loving lately as I continue my transition to safer, organic, green products.

Gressa Skin Minimalist Corrective Serum Foundation

So. Foundation. For the last several years, I’ve been loyal to Tarte’s Amazonian Clay foundation, which has been well-documented here. But I’ve been wanting to find an even cleaner alternative, so when my amazing aesthetician Elizabeth (a former makeup artist) posted an Instagram story saying she’d found the Holy Grail foundation, I immediately emailed her to find out more. Turns out she was right: Gressa Minimalist Corrective Serum Foundation is the best foundation—green or conventional—I’ve ever used. Gressa’s founder is a makeup artist with a deep-rooted background in herbalism, and the foundation is packed with good-for-your-skin ingredients like broccoli seed oil, lemon balm, sea buckthorn and elderflower extract. The foundation comes in a beautiful glass bottle with a dropper, and I swear you only need one drop for your entire face—the coverage is amazing, and it’s a liquid-to-powder formulation, so it dries quickly and feels light, even though it’s definitely full coverage. If you’re interested, I’d recommend ordering the color-matching kit, which will allow you try four shades and figure out your perfect match; I thought for sure I’d be the lightest color (hi, it’s possible I’m a ghost), but it turns out that shade 02 is much better with my skin tone. Full disclosure: this stuff is pricy, but like I said, you only need a teeny-tiny bit—the bottle’ll last ages. 

Gressa Lumiere in Elise

For a few years, I’ve been loyal to RMS Beauty’s Lip2Cheek in Demure, and I still use it. (Well, I did until I dropped the glass pot on the floor and busted it. Sigh.) But when I got the Gressa foundation, I decided to try the liquid blush, too—Gressa call its it “lumiere”—and so far I really like it. I got the color Elise, which is a pretty pink that also adds a little highlight, giving a sort of lit-from-within flush. You only need a tiny, tiny bit, and you just apply it with your fingers with an upward pressing/tapping motion. It glides right on and looks so pretty. You can also apply it to your eyelids and lips, but so far I’ve stuck to using it on my cheeks. It kind of reminds me of Benefit’s Benetint, but without the brush. And, like the foundation, it’s packed with good-for-your-skin ingredients.

Vapour Aura Multi-Use Blush in Courtesan

This is a brand-new discovery, courtesy of my friend Heather, but I’m loving it as an alternative to the Gressa Lumiere. It’s a stick blush, but it glides on effortlessly, which has not generally been my experience with stick makeup, so this is a nice alternative. I add a tiny dot to the apples of my cheeks and then gently work it in with a blush brush; the color blends effortlessly and, best of all, doesn’t wipe off my foundation in the process. The Courtesan color is a lovely bright pink that blends to a natural-looking flush. I’m a fan.

Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Beetroot

I love a good lipstick, and Bite Beauty‘s are the best I’ve ever worn. They last forever, are easy to apply (I’m too lazy for a lip brush, so I take this seriously) and are incredibly pigmented. I’ve built up a small collection and am always thrilled to add a new color to it. My latest: Beetroot, which is a deep, dark color very much like a red beet—the official description is “rich beauty infused with deep red.” I love it and highly recommend it if you’re looking for something a little darker for winter.

Schmidt’s Sensitive Skin Deodorant in Geranium Flower

So it turns out that I’m super sensitive to baking powder in deodorant, and most natural deodorants use a lot of it, which means that until I landed on the right formula, my armpits were red and rashy for an extended period of time. Well, Schmidt’s to the rescue: this formula smells great, doesn’t irritate my skin and, best of all, totally works (I’ve worn it to some pretty intense personal training sessions and it’s totally held up). Best of all? You can get it at Whole Foods, so it’s easily accessible. (And if you’d like another option, Meow Meow Tweet is really great, too, the packaging is just a bit messy; I like that the Schmidt’s comes in a more traditional push-up stick.)

P.S. My skincare routine has changed a lot since my last post about makeup and skincare, too; will post an update to that soon, too, to reflect what I’m currently doing/using.